Backseat Hitmen (Off limits to living Mafia players)

Thanks for the feedback!

Chronos, I was wavering about the Occultist anyway (and hadn’t included it my final role-list anyway), and you’re analysis is right. I’ll remove it until it is more balanced.

Ah, my lack of clarity. The “no lynch” would still hold the most votes and so no lynch would occur.

I have a little color text about the slow bureaucracy. :slight_smile: Game reason why: it hampers the global information (balancing against power roles), plus allows an additional role (the Coroner).

The Freemasons are the equivalent of Vanilla Townies. No special powers, except they can try to find each other. They win or lose with the Town, of course. They are also useful for finding the Omega wolf. Interesting idea about building a lodge.

Ah, good point. I’ll actually take that as the Guardian Angel being too powerful. Without them, the safety of the Witches can’t be guaranteed. And the Witchdoctor can only resurrect a given player once. The Witches can’t afford to sacrifice themselves, since it risks the Cabal winning. So, I think the Witches are ok without the Angels in play.

The Detective will get his info during the day, after he PMs his request (which death to investigate) to the moderator. Yes, he is the most powerful Town role. And he is balanced by the number of scum.

Basic Wolf strategy: choose one “fall guy” wolf (maybe even the Alpha, since he’s replaceable) to kill each night. The Detective will soon find him (and the Vampire). But as long as that Wolf keeps killing, the Detective won’t find any more Wolves. His information is limited by good play.

Of course, the Detective could claim early, revealing the Vampire and one Wolf. Then it’ll become a race between the protectors and the scum to see how long the Detective can hold out. I’ve considered this worst-case scenario for the scum and think it’s ok.

The Detective is the huge threat to the Undead, since they won’t have the numbers of the Wolves. The Vampire works like the Serial Killer, but with survival of the Necromancer as the goal. I think the Undead are balanced.

Yep, one of the less useful roles. The Coroner is basically a plain player, with a bonus insight. Not all power roles need to be powerful.

Right again, they’re basically simple Townies with a simple bonus. Good play for them would be more aggressive, since they know they can’t be killed as easily.

He’ll find out two mornings after the kill (first morning is ID reveal, second is side reveal). The Vigilante is the alternate attack arm of the Town, but he bets his life each time he uses his attack.

Probably the Witchdoctor will protect himself until he has a better target. And the number of scum is balanced against these kinds of trades (expect more than the usual number of scum in this game). And remember the WD can only save a player once. They can be killed permanently next time.

Ah, see my idea isn’t original. I guess this is just my version of the Bomb.

Chronos’s explanation kills the Occultist.

The Vicar vs Necromancer is actually well balanced. Each day-night cycle, there’ll typically be two or three new deaths. The Vicar can only bless one per day, so the bodies will be stacking up faster than he can bless. Unless the Town and Wolves hold back on lynching/killing. So, about mid-game, when half the players are dead, the Undead will be close to winning, unless the Vicar played well. Killing the Necromancer will thus be the first order of business for the other sides. And since he doesn’t kill directly the killer-ID powers don’t help.

Interesting. I was thinking the Cabal had it the hardest. Their only way to win is to sway votes and stay hidden. While the Cabal will need to help the Town early to kill Undead and Wolves, if the Witches survive, they’re screwed, since the Town will certainly never lynch a Witch. And the Town should view the Cabal is a buffer against the other scum (taking hits for them, since the Cabal will need to be out there swaying votes).

The Vampire(s) feeds kills to the Necromancer and doesn’t need to survive to win. The Undead win on any night that their count (Vampire(s) + Necro + Zombies) outnumbers all others combined. The Necromancer just needs to survive until midgame, when the number zombies is greater than the number of live players.

If anything, they’re too easy to win. I’ve considered allowing the Witchdoctor the ability to destroy one Zombie instead of casting the protective spell. Thoughts on that? BTW, the Vampire doesn’t know who the Necromancer is (and vice versa), and a same-side kill is possible. So it goes.

Yep, you’ve figured out the basic Wolf strategy. The Alpha would not be killed by the Warlock’s curse. The Magician will still escape if the Alpha is his target, but the Alpha would survive the attack, if not Vampire/Vigilante.

As to my motivations, my primary goal was to build in more mini-games. More things for players to weigh when thinking about what to do. And shifting “alliances” among the different sides.

General gameplay: everyone wants to get the Necromancer as soon as possible. But he has the perfect lurking role and will be hard to find. The Cabal will be helping the Town, except for trying to either get the Witches lynched or night-killed. The Detective will have to decide when to claim. Too early, and the Undead have a big advantage (with the Town killing Wolves instead of trying for the Necro).

Many of the roles are basically Vanilla Townies with an extra option. Not unbalancing, but giving the player something more to think about.

storyteller survived the night? I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked. Anyone want to offer odds that the first person to say that the Mafia let him survive so that people would suspect him is the other Mafioso?

A few more thoughts: First, if I’m understanding the rules correctly, a simultaneous wolf-undead win is possible, since the Zombies count when checking for the Undead win, but don’t count when checking for the Wolf win. Was this your intention?

Second, I think it’s possible for the Warlock to accidentally kill himself. Say, on night 1, Warlock enchants John Q (who is, of course, a vanilla townie), and that night, Greyback eats John Q. Second night, Warlock enchants Greyback, not knowing he’s a Wolf. Greyback dies from the Warlock’s curse, and thus can be said to have been killed by the Warlock. The Warlock has now killed someone who was enchanted, so on the third night, the curse rebounds and kills the Warlock. Probably very unlikely, but it’s an interesting possibility.

Third, the Necromancer only has to survive long enough to win, but the flip side is that he can’t win earlier than that, either, and everyone knows when he’s going to win. So they don’t have to aim for the Necromancer early on; they can just shoot for the Wolves and hope that the Witches or Seer finds the Necromancer before that critical point (which might never even come, if the kill rate slows down enough).

Fourth, speaking of that, the Witches are nearly as good as the Seer at finding the Necromancer. If they get a reading of “undead” on a player, there are only two possible roles that could be, and the Vampire is easily identified by other killer-finder roles.

Fifth, you mentioned “good play” by the Vicar. I’m not sure there is such a thing. One corpse is as good as any other, for the Necromancer, so the only sensible tactic for both the Necromancer and the Vicar is to choose their targets at random. Well, actually, both should show a slight preference against freshly-dead night kills, since they might be jujued, but the chance of juju is small enough that a uniform distribution is probably close enough.

Sixth, it’s possible for the killings to stop without the game ending. If the Wolves and the Vampire are all dead, but the Necromancer still lives, then the game keeps going, and depending on the number already dead, the Town might be able to stop their lynches and beat the Necromancer in the body race. This was actually the most probable outcome, with the Occultist in the game, but even without him, there are enough killer-finders that I think this is still pretty likely. The game would then enter a long, boring phase, waiting for the Seer and Witches to investigate everyone, the Masons to all find each other, and the Vicar to account for all the corpses, at which point everyone outs themselves and the Town and/or the Vigilante kill off the Necromancer and possibly any remaining Cabalists. Or, it’s even possible for the game to end in a stalemate, where the Town can’t afford to kill any Cabalists lest they be outnumbered by the Zombies, and can’t afford to kill the Necromancer, either, since they’ve run out of Witches and don’t want to trigger a Cabal win. In that case, the game would go on forever with day after day of “no lynch” votes and night after night of nothing happening at all.

Seventh, having a lot of almost-vanilla roles might not make much difference for those roles, but it does make a difference for the Seer, in that it makes it a lot easier for the Seer to roleclaim. If the Seer roleclaims and says “Alice, Bob, and Carol are all vanilla townies”, then Alice, Bob, and Carol can each individually say “Eh, lucky guess” and continue to doubt. But if the Seer says “Alice is vanilla with chocolate chips, Bob is vanilla with strawberries, and Carol is vanilla with fudge swirls”, then Alice, Bob, and Carol each separately know (or at least, have good reason to believe) that the Seer’s claim is correct, because how else would e have known their roles?

Lakai already set that up the day before, so it’s no surprise. Even if Lakai’s not the Godperson, (s?)he’s played a brilliant game. And now Queuing is saying he ought to be pushed off until tomorrow, which is either scummy or a mistake - the town needs to get a Mafia today or they lose.

The Wolves check in the day (before the lynch), and the Undead at night, before the kills.

Hehe, I hadn’t thought out that possibility. Occupational hazard for the Warlock, then.

Yep, that’s one of the considerations the players will have to make.

Yes, that’s needed to give a fair shot at finding the Necromancer.

I regretted that phrase after rereading it later. Lucky is more appropriate. But it’ll be the players supplying the randomness, not the ruleset, so I’m happy with it.

I worried some about stalemate conditions. but I don’t think it’s likely. Turns can go quickly if a majority votes “no lynch”. In the specific case where the Town loses whoever the lynch, I’d mod-rule they have to make a lynch, and choose the largest vote-getter. It’d mostly likely be a Cabal win, and probably well deserved.

True. I don’t see this as a problem.

Thanks for the feedback. I think I have a good (if complex) setup. I’ve thought quite a bit about it, and the critiques are useful since I’m no Perfect Master.

Hi, guys! Which way to the nachos?
So, I’m curious. Why do you think they killed me? I’ve got some guesses:

  1. Because I said I would push hard to lynch Lakai today, meaning he is indeed mafia.

  2. Because I called Queuing on why he wanted to go after Kat/Fretful instead of Lakai, meaning he and Lakai are the last two Mafia.

  3. Because by killing me instead of Storyteller, and having Lakai make those posts, they have an outside chance of getting Storyteller lynched instead.

Any other theories?

I figured you’d be the next to go. You’re the only one that I actually trusted to be town. I never said that in game, because I feared that the mafia would kill you. So much for that idea.

Well, thanks for the attempt to keep me breathing, anyway. :slight_smile:

I sort of thought I was asking to be killed when I challenged Queuing, but I hoped maybe it would raise suspicions in the eyes of the remaining three townies, whoever they are. If they will at least lynch Lakai today…

Very good game, NAF, thanks for running it! But I definitely wouldn’t sign up for any more, at least not until I have internet access at work.

Whyever would they do that, when they can instead have at least a 50% chance of instantly losing the game?

Nah, I can’t see any reason, either. But apparently, Queuing does:

Nothing except, of course, removing one Mafia vote, and possibly gaining a little more information to judge the last one one, and conceivably even winning, on the off chance he’s the last one left. I know I thought Fretful was the other one, but really, is there anything scummier than recommending that the Town not lynch the one person everyone is almost convinced is Mafia? If it weren’t for the fact that the game’s not over, I’d think they were both scum, but as it is, Queuing is looking even worse than Fretful.

I also note with interest that Queuing and Lakai are the two who are pushing the “Why wasn’t Storyteller lynched?” question. Of course, the obvious reason is so they could cast suspicion on him. Really, there wasn’t a compelling reason to choose Storyteller or StarvingButStrong (assuming both were Town): Both are about equally trusted, and neither one is in one of those either/or diads. I think that the Mafia is trying to cast suspicion on everyone, in the hopes that one of them will stick enough to sway a townie’s vote.

I’ll take you up on that one. Doughnuts to dollars?

Yeah, just because I fell for MonkeyMensch’s “neat trick” doesn’t mean that I’m that much of a sucker. :slight_smile:

Sorry if this has already been done, but please could I have a summary of who has died and their roles?
How many Mafia do we think are left?

Woo hoo! I was finally right - SBS was citizen…

yaaay…

I guess…

And for like the fifth time, WHY HAVEN’T THEY LYNCHED LAKAI?!?! Everyone who says something against him DIES that night!

Sure, here is a list of the dead:

One and Only Wanderers - Citizen
ArizonaTeach - Citizen
Autolycus - Citizen
brewha - Citizen
cowgirl - Citizen
JSexton/chrisk - doctor
Dnooman - Citizen
glee - Citizen
StarvingButStrong - Citizen
Enfant Terrible - Citizen
Fern Forest - Citizen
Winston Smith - Citizen
Menocchio - Citizen
MadTheSwine - Citizen
Rysto - Citizen
Gadarene - Citizen
hocow - Citizen
Malacandra - Citizen
Smitty/cowgirl - guardian
Blaster Master - vigilantee
Captain Carrot - mason
Pleonast - mason
Zuma - mason
Sturmhauke - mason
CaerieD - Detective
pimaspinner - beat cop
Kivvik - mafia
Aguecheek - mafia
nesta - mafia
Pygmy Rugger - mafia
Flying Cow of Doom - mafia
Suburban Plankton - mafia
MonkeyMensch - serial killer
The current town thought is that there are 2 mafia left.

Much as I’m convinced that Lakai is scum, I don’t think this is quite correct. Look at how long brewha’s survived (and he was lynched in the end, not hit), but he’s been gunning for Lakai for half the game. Admittedly, the Mafia didn’t really need to kill brewha, since he had almost no credibility with the Town, but it’s not quite so simple as “suspect Lakai = dead”.

My best guess right now is that Queuing and Lakai are the last scum. I had been pushing on Queuing when I died, but I didn’t have enough support from the rest of the town. I didn’t have a good read on Lakai when I was alive, but man he looks suspicious as all hell these days.

Go Fretful Porpentine! You’ve got it right, I think. And maybe you’ll notice I didn’t like Queuing’s reasoning for letting Lakai go, and there would be more ammo for you. If you can just get Kat and Storyteller to sign on, even just the first step of lynching Lakai, the town could still win.

[Wouldn’t it be ironic if my biggest contribution to the town was dying when I did?]

Pleonast, I’m still seeing a problem with the Witches as designed. They don’t all have to claim, because they can communicate, just one has to claim and then her sisters can protect her. The exposed witch can guide the lynchings and the vigilantee from behind the safety of her sisters’ protection.

The Detective can similarly out himself and rely on the witches or gaurdian angel to protect him. Since he both gets his data during the day(meaning he can lead lynch mobs) and gets positive info about who is doing night kills, he’ll find the Vamp and Wolves in a number of nights equal to their total numbers. They have that time to find the GAs and/or witches and no more. In a standard game this strategy is balanced by the Detective sometimes wasting time investigating non scum. Therefore they have up to a maximum of the number of players worth of nights to find the Detective’s protectors. Not so with your tweak to the Detective role.

Re: the Cabal. Who are thier predators? Who is going after them? The witches? The witches care more about their own protection than they do about killing Cabalists. By protecting themselves they can both defeat the Cabal and save their own lives. The wolves don’t care about them much, if any, more than they would about standard Masons. They can kill them at any time and the Cabal has no investigation powers to threaten the wolves. It’s this lack of natural predators that make me think the Cabal will do well with a minimum of effort.

As for the undead, let me make sure I understand the role. I thought there would be some players who had the role of “vanilla undead”, is that accurate? If so that’s where my “unfun” comments apply. They can’t do anything to help their team except use their votes/voices to deflect attention away from the Vamp and Necro(assuming they can figure out who they are). Out of all your roles this faction was the most confusing to me. With your active help in the thread as a GM you may be able to resolve a lot of these issues, but be prepared for a lot of questions and some difficulty determining strategy for this group.

Enjoy,
Steven

I hope we see a lot more posts by both Queuing and Fretful Porpentine. I just can’t decide which of them is the last Mafioso. Subjectively, Queuing looks a lot scummier, but objectively, Fretful Porpentine does. I have a detailed analysis typed up, if anyone wants to see it, but if anyone other than Lakai and Fretful Porpentine were Mafia, then the lynch of Pygmy Rugger could have been averted or prevented in favor of a Town lynching. Now, maybe such a shift would have been suspicious, but I think that the Mafia could have manufactured a reason plausible enough to cover it (or even voted differently in the first place, so there’d be no need of a shift). The only circumstances in which it couldn’t have been done at all are if Lakai alone is Mafia, if Fretful Porpentine alone is, or if they both are.

(psst: look at this post )